AllGreenBayPackers.Com

The Packers inability to bury a team like the Saints is one reason Green Bay isn't quite dominant.

The Green Bay Packers are 6-0 and should be 7-0 after feasting on Christian Ponder and the bumbling Minnesota Vikings on Sunday.

The Packers have been the more talented team on the field for each of their games this season, sometimes by a wide margin. But despite the Packers fast start and obvious talent superiority, I wouldn’t call this team dominant….yet.

Extremely good? Yes. Ultra-talented? Yes. The best team in the NFL? Yes. Dominant? Not quite.

Here’s why:  Read more... (463 words + 1 image, estimated 1:51 mins reading time)

• The Packers are 31st in the NFL in passing yards allowed. Opposing QBs have racked up 1,798 passing yards on Green Bay, an average of almost 300 yards per game. Passing numbers are up around the league, but this number needs to come down for the Packers to be dominant.
• The Packers are third in Football Outsiders DVOA ratings and Pro-Football-Reference.com’s simple ratings system. I don’t put too much stock in this type of analysis this early in the season, but these numbers do tell us that the Packers are not miles ahead of everyone else like a dominant team would be.
• A dominant team would have put away the Saints and the Panthers (and probably the Bears) much earlier than the Packers did. Instead of putting these games out of reach, the Packers let both teams hang around. A dominant team also would not have been shut out by the Rams in the second half, even if that dominant team was bored like the Packers probably were on Sunday.

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In each of the past three games, Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers offense have done something they have only done once since Week 5: thrown a touchdown pass to a tight end. Donald Lee accounts for two of those touchdowns, and we just saw Tom Crabtree score his first NFL touchdown in Sunday’s NFC Wild Card game against the Philadelphia Eagles.

All of the touchdown passes came from near the goal line, and both of the scoring tight ends had fewer than 10 total yards of production in each game.

After the final regulation game against the Chicago Bears, frequent commenter “Ron LC” made an interesting note about Mike McCarthy’s use of the tight end this season. He wrote: “Lee’s TD last week has identified an area where MM seems to have given up. The TE as a key player in getting the 1st down and controlling the ball.”

In response to this, I decided to do some research to see if it was an accurate assessment. What I found was interesting, but not totally surprising.

The following chart and graphs present the data I uncovered (click on the chart for full resolution):

KEY

TARG% = TE Targets / Total Pass Attempts
YDS% = TE Yards / Total Pass Yards
TD% = TE Touchdowns / Total Passing Touchdowns
First Down TE% = TE First Downs / Passing First Downs

LOSING FINLEY HURT PRODUCTION . . .  Read more... (1408 words + 4 images, estimated 5:38 mins reading time)

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In their Week 13 game against the San Francisco 49ers, the Green Bay Packers were clearly favored to win the match-up. Not only were they playing at Lambeau Field (the first time since playing the Dallas Cowboys before the bye week), they were also facing a team whose mere four wins came against opponents currently boasting no better than a .500 record.

Perhaps that’s the reason, then, why fans were a bit frustrated after the first quarter of play.

Here were the Green Bay Packers – an offensive powerhouse and a defensive machine – down by two fields goals and with zero points to show for their efforts against the 49ers?

“Mike McCarthy’s teams always start slow,” you might hear some fans say. “Just wait. There’s a lot of game left.”

And most people would probably agree with this sentiment pretty readily. The Green Bay Packers have tended to start slow in their games before piling on the points in ensuing quarters. As fans, we’ve taken their first quarter play with a grain of salt. We don’t like it, but we’re willing to wait it out and see what the next 45 minutes of game time brings.

That got me to thinking, though. Do the Packers really start slow? And how do their games usually progress across the four quarters?

In order to answer these questions, I went digging through some basic statistics to see if I could find any trends in the data. Take a look at the following table and graph, and see if you noticed the same things I did:  Read more... (1390 words + 2 images, estimated 5:34 mins reading time)

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Welcome to the first edition of the “Packers Beer Mug,” where I will take a look at a particular aspect of the Green Bay Packers from two different angles, then determine whether to ultimately view the mug as half full or half empty.

This week’s question:

Is the Green Bay Packers’ current winning streak a trend that will continue through the final seven games?

The Green Bay Packers and their fans have been on a wild roller coaster ride ever since training camp. After displaying some offensive and defensive muscle during preseason, the Packers had two respectable wins at Philadelphia and against Buffalo.

But then came the first division game against the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field, and suddenly the team was looking eerily similar to its 2009 unit.

They gave up crucial plays on Special Teams and drew a record eighteen penalties. Add to the mix a narrow victory against the Detroit Lions, plus two overtime losses to the average-at-best Washington Redskins and Miami Dolphins, and the season’s outlook became quite dull.

Fans started becoming skeptical of what their team was really made of, and if they could overcome the rash of injuries.

Jump to the present, and all of sudden the Green Bay Packers are riding a three game winning streak that began with a tough but crucial victory against the rival Minnesota Vikings and followed with a strong defensive win against the New York Jets. Now maybe the 2010 Packers really are following a similar road as last year’s team, who won five straight games after a 4-4 start.  Read more... (1139 words + 1 image, estimated 4:33 mins reading time)

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In this fourth installment of “Studying the Stats”, I’ll be taking a look at the Green Bay Packers’ penalty woes and how they may have affected results.

First, the cold hard stats:
Packers Penalties:

2009    118 (1)        1057yds.(2)
2008    110 (2)         984yds. (1)
2007    113 (4)        1006yds. (2)

Penalty Rankings for Super Bowl teams:

2009 NO (20)      Indpls (31)
2008 Pitt (12)      Arizona (5)
2007 NE (25)     NYG (26)
2006 Chi (5)    Indpls (26)
2005 Pitt (25)    Seat (30)

The numbers in parehtheses are team rankings in penalties with respect to the rest of the NFL teams. As you can see, the Packers have been top shelf producers in the dubious category of most-penalized NFL teams. Looking at the last five Super Bowl contestants, you can see that 80% of the time, the teams were not heavily penalized teams.

More important than just committing penalties is when you commit them. Looking at the Packers’ stats in this department, there are some real eye-openers in there.

Special teams penalties were a big problem for the Packers in 2009. 30 special team penalties were committed overall, with 14 being holding penalties, a very high percentage. 17 of 30 penalties were on Packers returns, resulting in a field position loss of 215 yards and Jordy Nelson’s 99 yard kickoff return for a TD.  Read more... (712 words + 3 images, estimated 2:51 mins reading time)

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In this third installment of “Studying the Stats”, I’ll be taking a look at how the Green Bay Packers average starting offensive field position came about and how it affected results.

Click here for…

Part 1 – Interceptions

Part 2 – Fast Starts

On average, the Packers starting offensive field position in 2009 was their own 32 yard line. That sounds pretty decent if you’re just thinking possessions off of kickoffs. But included in the mix is offensive possessions off of punts, defensive interceptions and fumble recoveries, missed field goals, blocked kicks and 4-down defensive stops.

In 2009, the Packers’ defense finished second in the league in average yards per game given up. So we can’t point the field position finger at the defensive unit.  Other than how much yardage your defense relinquishes, the next biggest factor in determining your average offensive starting field position is your specials teams return game. Jordy Nelson did an average job with kickoff returns, finishing 17th in the NFL among kickoff returners with at least 10 chances (an average of 25.4 yards per return).

Punt returns, unfortunately, were a whole different ballgame. Nelson was a putrid 36th in the NFL among punt returners with 10 chances or more, with an average of 5.3 yards per return. That’s called a field position nightmare. When Tramon Williams was given a chance at punt returns, he doubled Nelson’s average. But with the Packers’ secondary injuries, Williams became too valuable to risk getting hurt on punt returns, so Nelson took the bulk of the snaps.  Read more... (750 words + 3 images, estimated 3:00 mins reading time)

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In this second installment of “Studying the Stats”, I’ll be taking a look at how the Green Bay Packers offense did in 2009 coming out of the locker room. In other words, how they started out in each half.

If you remember the 2008 season, there was much consternation about the Packers’ slow starts (here’s just one example).    There were also many Mike McCarthy comments about ‘fixing our slow starts” and promises to “work on” getting out of the box faster.

During the 2009 preseason, McCarthy kept his word. Along with working on the red zone offense, getting out to faster starts was a point of emphasis for the Packers during the 2009 training camp.

Well, I’m here to give credit where credit is due. Mike McCarthy’s offense made definitive progress in this area in 2009. The Packers had the first score of the game 11 times in 2009. Their record over those games was 9-2. Even more impressive, if they continued playing well and took a lead into halftime, the 2009 Packers were 11-1 in those situations.

For the record, in 2008, the Packers, scored first 8 times, going 5-3

Now of course, this doesn’t mean to win games in the NFL you have to win the first half, but it sure makes things easier. With few exceptions, most NFL teams would rather be in the position of protecting a lead late in games, rather than desperately trying to score.  Read more... (672 words + 3 images, estimated 2:41 mins reading time)

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